bringing the mind and body together

this is my story

I have a perfect story. If I told you, you would be engaged immediately and take my point of view. I could easily convince you that I have been wronged and we could spend hours or years talking about all of the parties involved and their various roles. You would have sympathy for me when I described the awful physical sensations I would get from the stress of it. We would see the good and bad in each person, just to be more evolved in our approach, and then we could analyze all of the dynamics at play. We could even have a fit of compassion by talking about how the perpetrators were once victims and are just replaying their own wounded past. You could bring up all of the relevant material in your life and how it relates to your story. In the end, we would feel the satisfaction of having gotten to a deeper understanding of things. We might even feel like we organized it somehow because we can now see the underlying patterns. At any rate, we’ve become fast friends.

At one point, one of my friends tried to convince me that it was all me. If I worked on just my part in it everything would change. I clearly explained to her that that was not possible because in my story, I am not even the key player. I am more like an innocent bystander being affected by the actions of others. Plus I have been doing internal work on it for God knows how long and it doesn’t change them.

But here’s a funny thing: as long as I was telling a story of betrayal, I kept manifesting betrayal.

One day in spite of my ego, I caught the wisdom of disengaging from the story completely. I realized that stories were like brambles and thickets. Instead of coming to a better understanding, things were getting more and more convoluted, to a point where no part of it made any sense at all. So anytime I started to tell it, (mostly to myself by now because my friends were exhausted) I would reel my mind back to ground zero, to nothing, just an empty space. And I would tell my empty space story instead. And then suddenly one day after months of this practice, the old story began to change. Mean people were playing nice and I no longer felt caught up in it at all.

Shortly after that, an old friend visited. He wanted to be filled in on the details. As I was speaking I felt all of the same physical sensations I had when I was entrenched in it. Later, one of the key players acted out again and then I got into an argument with another over all of the same old stuff from the past. Just telling the story, even though I was getting to the happy ending of how things had changed and how I had learned to let go, activated all of the old material and woke from the dead all of the same dynamics, as if they had never left. WOW!

My good friend asked me: Why did you tell that story? It is not your story anymore.

Please don’t ever tell that story again.

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About jennifer

I am an acupuncturist, herbalist and craniosacral therapist; mother, step-mom, and yogini-in-training. My passion is the creative process in all of its forms through healing, body movement, meditation, family, art and nature.

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Ha! I can totally relate to this. When friends are exhausted and can’t hear it anymore and the old story just lies there like a dead stinking fish on the floor. Another awesome post!
I find it is a hard habit to kick when the story just disappears. I have oriented around it for so long. It is a good idea to have another story handy to replace the old one. Please keep the posts coming. I love reading your journey.